Two preschool-aged brothers were lying in hospital beds on Thursday, one fighting for his life,
in what Jerusalem police called the worst child abuse case they have ever seen.

Both children had burns all over their bodies. The younger boy, who is still unconsciousness,
also had marks indicating that his arms and legs had been bound and that he had been beaten
with a blunt object and whipped on the back. Police detained the mother, 38.

The father said that he and his wife had been separated for some time, and that he had been
living in a second Jerusalem property owned by the couple, he had no idea of the horrors
that police believed occurred in his wife's residence. The children were allegedly cared
for by two Israeli men in their 20s; they are also suspects in the abuse.

April 4, 2008. 'The mother forced her children to eat feces, burned their hands'

An indictment was issued against a Jerusalem mother of eight Sunday, alleging that she forced
her children to eat feces, burned their hands with a lighter and a stove and bent their fingers,
among other things. The indictment reveals an incident in which the woman had allegedly stuffed
her children into a suitcase and locked them in for three days, allowing them to come out from
time to time. An acquaintance of the mother's was also included in the indictment on suspicion
that he participated in crimes of abuse and assault of the minors.

After the abuse was exposed some three weeks ago, the police launched an investigation into suspicions
that the abuse was part of a religious belief that children can be "fixed" through violence. The
police believe that similar acts of abuse are being carried out in many other homes.

The severe abuse was discovered when two toddlers, aged three and four, were taken to Hadassa University
Hospital in Jerusalem in serious condition. Since then, the older boy's condition has improved, but the
younger boy is classified as critical and is currently in a coma. "We know of severe beatings, freezing
showers, burns on a hot stove, cigarette burns, whipping and shaking," said a senior police official.

Indictment reveals rabbi instructed woman to 'repair' her children through 'beating, tying, burning
organs and feeding them with faeces'. As her three-and-a-half-year-old comatose son continued to
lie in his hospital bed, a Jerusalem woman was indicted Sunday by the Jerusalem District Court
of abusing him and his four-and-a-half-year-old brother.

According to the indictment, "During the months of February and March, the accused and her children
moved to her mother's apartment in Jerusalem. During this period, the mother found it difficult to
cope with the burden of raining her small children, and particularly with their education.

"The defendant turned to a rabbi and asked for his advice in terms of his children's education. The
rabbi concluded that the children were 'possessed' with evil spirits and advised the defendant and
other suspects to carry out 'tikkunim' on the children in order to help them get rid of those demons."

The indictment went on to say that the rabbi instructed the mother to conduct "tikkunim" on the children,
"meaning "jolting, beating, tying, burning organs, feeding them with faeces, and more." "Two of the
suspects were put in charge of educating the children, and systematically abused them and the
defendant's other children in a large number of cases, for a long time, claiming that these
'tikkunim' were aimed at removing these evil spirits from the children."

Some of the acts of abuse were also described in the indictment. "The defendant, who knew about the abuse,
continued to desert her children." The mother was accused of "cooperating with some of the other suspects
in forcibly jolting the children in at least 40 cases, grasping them in the back or shoulders, or grasping
them in their hands and legs and shaking them with their heads moving back and forth and from side to side.

"The defendant and the other suspects also used to tie the children's hands and legs with plastic restraints
and ropes for many hours, as well as hit one of the children in the face and bend his hands behind his back,
throwing him in the air." The small son, who was hospitalized at the Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital's intensive
care unit, suffers from brain damage which has left him in a vegetative state.

Israel Police said Monday they will begin extradition proceedings against Rabbi Elior Chen, who fled
to Canada shortly after one of his followers was charged with systematic child abuse including
burning her toddlers, making them eat feces, and putting them in a suitcase for days.

Chen was not charged with anything, but fled as news reports of the Jerusalem mother's detention were
circulated, and it appeared she had committed the abuse following instructions from him on child
disciplining techniques. During a search of his home Thursday, police found evidence that appears
to link the rabbi to the abuse, including journals that document the violence.

Two of the family's eight children, aged 4 and 5, were hospitalized in serious condition two weeks
ago, after Chen allegedly ordered two of his followers to discipline the children by beating,
burning, pushing and shaking them, and tying them up as a way of "correcting" their behavior.

The 4-year-old remains in a coma. Police suspect that Chen's supporters also doused the children
in hot and cold water and broke their bones with hammers and blows. The mother was charged with
forcing the children to eat feces, beating them unconscious and locking them up in a suitcase
for three days. Chen and three of his supporters allegedly began providing the family with
"educational lessons" several months ago. They allegedly kicked the father out of his home
and began abusing several of the family's eight children, especially the two youngest.

Elior Chen, a criminal child abuser being sought by the Israeli Police and Interpol, ran away
to Sao Paulo Brazil, and obtained assistance from some Chabad or Chabad-like religious cult locatedexactly on the same neighborhood where the 3 abducted children are attending a Chabad school.

Brazilian Federal Police show a picture of "Rabbi" Elior Chen during a press conference in Brasilia

Here are some links to this story from the Israeli and Jewish media
(the following quotes are copied from the following news stories):

What exactly is going on in Brazil? Who exactly are we dealing with?
If the Israeli Police and the Interpol cannot even bring a criminal child abuser to justice, someone who is not even
a Brazilian citizen, then how much of a chance do we have of ever recovering these children from Brazil?

March 25, 2008. Mother of 12 suspected of abusing kids.

A 54-year-old mother of 12 is under arrest for allegedly severely abusing her children, police said
Tuesday. The Beit Shemesh resident is also suspected of failing to report multiple cases of incest
among her children. She was remanded for six days by the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court on Tuesday.

It is the latest in a spate of cases of alleged child abuse in Israel, and comes less than two weeks
after a haredi US immigrant couple living in Jerusalem were arrested for seriously abusing their two
small children, aged three and four. One of them remains hospitalized in critical condition.

The suspect, who cannot be named by order of the court, was arrested last month after neighbors heard
a child crying for help and objects being broken in the home. It took police two hours to gain entry
to the home, with the intervention of local rabbis. Officers and social workers soon uncovered brutal
physical abuse of several of the children, including whippings with both belts and electric cables.

The mother is also suspected of breaking one daughter's nose with a rolling pin, leaving her children
to sleep outside in a locked shed when they came home late, and preventing them from receiving medical
treatment for their injuries. The mother said it was all part of their "education".

The teenage boy who was removed from the house told social workers that he had had sexual relations with
his 18-year-old sister, and that he had told his parents and his rabbis, and that the latter told him not
to tell anybody else. The defendant, who was covered in several layers of clothing, did not speak in court.

Police on Tuesday arrested a mother of eight from Netivot for allegedly raping two of her sons,
aged 8 and 11. The suspect, a 38-year-old religious woman, confessed to sexually abusing the
older of the two children. Police say the suspect and her husband were divorced, and the
children were removed from their home last year by a court's injunction after social
workers found the mother to be mentally unstable.

The 11-year-old boy was consequently placed in a boarding school in Bnei Brak, where he told
the school's social worker that his mother forced him into having sexual intercourse on one of
his visits home. The welfare officials on Tuesday said the case was passed on to the police
over a month ago, and that they were baffled as to why the mother was arrested only now.

This case is one of many cases with serious allegations of child abuse to have shocked
Israelis over the past week, as a Haredi woman from Beit Shemesh was also indicted
with charges of severe sexual and physical abuse of her 12 children.

A 30-year-old woman from Tiberias was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of seriously beating and
imprisoning her two sons, aged two and three, on Monday night. Police found the older child
smeared in excrement in the bathroom and the younger one in a locked room. Signs of
abuse, apparently caused by belt lashes, were found on the bodies of both boys.

The mother denied abusing her children. She said she was punishing the children in an effort
to stop them from soiling their underwear and because they were keeping her from resting.

The woman, who is divorced from the children's father, attempted to jump out the window of the
fourth-floor apartment when police came to arrest her and is due to be sent for psychiatric
treatment. She is suspected of abuse, neglect and false imprisonment.

Every year in the USA there are hundreds of thousands of children who are parentally
abducted. Regretfully, these cases are usually ignored by law enforcement officials
and other agencies who are supposed to protect the innocent children in the USA.
The negligence and incompetence of the authorities only agravates this problem.

Sometimes, abducted children are taken across international borders. These cases are
known as International Parental Abductions. Anybody who kidnaps a child is a CRIMINAL
even if the abductor happens to be the biological mother of the child. Since the hatufim.org
website was created, we have learned of many other parental abductions, and we have met
many other left-behind parents, and all parental abductions have a lot in common.

A case that made the news in the USA, Brazil, and other countries, was the international
abduction case of Sean Goldman. The one thing that made that case different from all the
other cases is that the mother of Sean Goldman died in Brazil a few years after she
abducted her son to Brazil. But instead of sending the child back to his father,
Sean Goldman continued to be illegally retained in Brazil by his step-father, who
happened to be a lawyer that specializes in international parental abductions.

Every decent person in the world agreed that Sean Goldman should immediately be sent back to
his father in the USA, but the Brazilian government continued refusing to return Sean Goldman
to his father in the USA despite the fact that several politicians including the President
of the USA and Brazil, as well as the US Secretary of State got involved in this dispute.
Over $500,000 US Dollars were spent in legal fees, which was proven to be a completely
useless expense as Brazil had no intention to return the abducted child to his father. Brazil
decided to return Sean Goldman to his father in the USA IMMEDIATELY after the US
government imposed ~$3 Billion Dollars in trade sanctions against Brazil.